This paper uses a synthetic cohort technique and Consumer Expenditure Survey data to construct average age-profiles of consumption and income over the working lives of typical households across different education and occupation groups. The authors estimate a structural model of optimal life-cycle consumption expenditures in the presence of realistic labor income uncertainty. The model fits the profiles well and provides tight estimates of the discount rate and risk aversion. They find that consumer behavior changes significantly over the life cycle. Young consumers behave as buffer-stock agents, while around age 40, the typical household starts accumulating liquid assets for retirement, and its behavior mimics more closely that of a certainty equivalent consumer. This change is driven by the life-cycle profile of expected income. The methodology provides a natural decomposition of saving into its precautionary and retirement components. The paper contributes to the debate on the determinants of wealth accumulation and finds that observed saving patterns are consistent with forward-looking optimizing behavior in a life-cycle framework augmented to include income uncertainty.This paper uses a synthetic cohort technique and Consumer Expenditure Survey data to construct average age-profiles of consumption and income over the working lives of typical households across different education and occupation groups. The authors estimate a structural model of optimal life-cycle consumption expenditures in the presence of realistic labor income uncertainty. The model fits the profiles well and provides tight estimates of the discount rate and risk aversion. They find that consumer behavior changes significantly over the life cycle. Young consumers behave as buffer-stock agents, while around age 40, the typical household starts accumulating liquid assets for retirement, and its behavior mimics more closely that of a certainty equivalent consumer. This change is driven by the life-cycle profile of expected income. The methodology provides a natural decomposition of saving into its precautionary and retirement components. The paper contributes to the debate on the determinants of wealth accumulation and finds that observed saving patterns are consistent with forward-looking optimizing behavior in a life-cycle framework augmented to include income uncertainty.